It also houses a 109,000-square-foot lab with a lot of cutting-edge, space-related research.

Deep within the Space Life Science Lab near Kennedy Space Center, if you're lucky enough to get a tour, you can see a Mars simulation chamber, high-tech plant incubators and liters upon liters of green and blue algae.

And that’s just a sliver of the cake. Carol Ann Taylor, operations manager of the laboratory, said 12 organizations are residents of the lab, which includes commercial, government and academia. The space that’s all about space also has 145 offices and cubicles, 29 science labs and eight hardware labs; five conference rooms and seven environmental growth chambers.

I got a chance to speak with four scientists on their projects and they fed me so much information that I was a bit surprised I didn’t walk out the door with a complimentary lab coat. Here’s a rundown of each project I came across:

Neuprene

In Deborah Wells’ lab, the first thing that hits your face is the change in temperature.

It's pretty warm in there as Wells, vice president of process development for Indialantic-based Neuprene, is experimenting with algae. Around the lab are several large flasks and 20-liter carboys each holding a bubbling green liquid that someday may be called “green gold."

That's because the 2-year-old company has been researching the use of algae as a petroleum substitute used to create everyday items. “We found a biological technology that will produce the same chemical so you can make tires, gloves and water bottles. The chemical comes from a biological organism instead of making it from petroleum."

Mars simulation chamber

Andrew Schuerger, a University of Florida aerobiology and Mars astrobiology professor, has created a mini Mars simulation chamber—the only one in Florida. “It’s a very capable instrument,” Schuerger said of the chamber he spent 10 years building. “It can recreate five conditions on the surface of Mars. It’s a pressure chamber so it can pump down to the low atmospheric pressure on the surface of Mars.”

The $2.5 million grant-funded chamber also can imitate the ultra-harsh ultraviolet radiation of Mars, which is 1,000 times more aggressive than Earth’s due to the lack of an ozone layer. The purpose of this device is to test the survival of microorganisms on Mars’ surface and, according to his research, a few can stand the intense pressure, but none can withstand the ultraviolet rays.

D.A.R.T.

The one thing I wasn’t allowed to snap a picture of was a red rocket-shaped mechanism with the word DART on the side, which also had a couple of UF stickers and NASA logos. As dangerous as the device looked, seeing that it was shaped like a rocket, it does one thing: collects dust while mounted on a jet.

DART stands for Dust at Altitude Recovery Technology. The $100,000-plus grant-funded project collects atmospheric dust at high speeds which then is analyzed by Schuerger, who said the findings are more than interesting. “It turns out that every year in July-September, Florida, like the Caribbean, gets a large number of African dust storms that blow over every season. Those dust plumes bring on an average of 50 million metric tons of dust from Africa to Florida each year."

And by analyzing the dust, Schuerger is checking for plant, animal and human pathogens that may result in harmful effects.

Check out the slideshow to see what I saw during my space life escapade. And see the links below for more on Space Florida: